From : Fong-Ping Lee
Sent : Sunday, November 28, 2004 4:03 PM
To : Gary Jin
CC : Teacher Don Chang ,
Weii Ma
Subject : Correction about they are divorced
Jin Gan-Lin:
I hate to mention this topic, but I have to say it all I know. Technically,
Mr. Teacher Ma and Ms. Teacher Chang are NOT divorced.
Nov. 21 in Taipei -营 visited Ms. Teacher Chang. She kindly told me Mr.
Ma is in Yangzhou and will furnish his phone no. through e-mail. Guessing
the rumor may be wrong, I raised the subject by saying I heard the rumor.
She told me he offered to sign but she declined. The fact is she e-mailed
me Mr. Ma's phone no. Then I communicated with Mr. Ma. During the short
conversation, I felt there was a care for Mr. Ma. Why the conversation is
short, I have my mother (who needs wheel-chair) and the taxi waiting in front
of a narrow and curved hilly street.
Nov. 27 in Orange County, CA - I called Mr. Ma. We were so happy in talking.
I reported my big mouth and the divorce-rumor story. He confirmed my understanding,
including all phone no. in Taipei leading to the house I visited. In the
end, he told me he was wiped out of the house. So, technically, it is true
that it is NOT divorced.
Why I bother so much by revisiting this subject at the risk of touching
some unhappy feeling of Teacher Ma and Teacher Chang? Because I feel there
is care between and they have grandkid already. For children's sake, things
better be arranged towards the happiness end. When I was young and a brave
man, I shout the word of divorce many times in many years. The consequence
is I learned later my kids were hurt through their growing up. I also learned
if it is not over the final line, then it is still on this side not that
side. The e-mail from Bertha Ma which told us Mr. Ma's phone no. is from
Ms. Teacher Chang Don.
My fault is I am a sometimes big mouth and I got my blame already. After
I got e-mail from Bertha Ma, I spent one hour calling those numbers and
in vain. I called another phone no., our classmate Wu Yun-Hwa in Dallas.
The excitement due to no communication since 1970 suddenly disappeared after
I reported my talking to Teacher Chang about the rumor. Wu suddenly repeated
my confession that "Why you□e a big mouth". I expect I'll be blamed more
in the coming months, although Wu will be benifited soon from engaging this
conversation to see the FeiPeng Web.
Communication among Chinese is strange, sometimes very week. The potential
war regarding the Taiwan Independence is somewhere due to the lack of suffiency
of communication. I do not communicate sufficiently well with my wife, still.
But I learned peace, my kid's happiness are important. Sometimes, She is
right. And more wrongly, sometimes, I was wrong.
Gary, I want you to post this note which help document efforts and side
stories how we re-communicate with Teacher Ma Wei-i and Teacher Chang Don
after so many years. I did ask over the phone "Teacher Ma why you grouped
us into such a class?" I hoped he can tell us face to face soon why.
p.s. Both of them asked me our classmate Hsu tsao-jiun. Someone should help
us find him out.
Fong-Ping Lee